“You can never make everybody happy unless you’re doing things that are disingenuous.”
~C. J. Wilson
Author: Allan (Page 365 of 492)
I lied to Carrie-Anne to get her to go out with me on our very first date. I tricked her. I had no confidence. She was out of my league. I had to resort to deception. I couldn’t just ask her for a date. So, I lied.
It was March 1989. I was a senior at Oklahoma Christian, about six weeks away from graduating. Carrie-Anne was a junior. I had always noticed her around campus. She was this really cute girl who looked great in faded blue jeans and a sweatshirt, wore white Keds, drove a little tiny Plymouth hatchback and spoke with a super thick Texas accent. She and I had never run in the same social circles together. So we had never really had much of a conversation before, other than just pleasant greetings and acknowledgements here and there.
It was at the end of March when my roommate, Jeff Hassman, and I made a list of the ten girls we were absolutely going to go out with before graduation. That was the goal. We were going to graduate and leave OC with no regrets. There were not going to be any what-ifs or maybes. We were going to boldly approach these women on our list and take them out on dates. Jeff came up with his list of ten. I was only able to write down nine names.
And Carrie-Anne Rowland was at the top of the list.
The following Friday afternoon I spied her — stalked her — in the student center and approached her with a plan. I told her there were a whole bunch of us going to see a movie at 10:00 that night. Several of us, a dozen or more. And I invited her to join us. It was a group thing. No pressure. Low key. Not really a date. To my great surprise and delight, she said ‘yes.’ And, since the movie was starting so late, she was going to the mall to do some shopping and be back at her apartment at about 9:00.
Perfect.
I called her at 9:15 and told her there had been a huge mistake. All my friends had gone to the 7:30 show. I had misunderstood everybody. The whole group — which never really existed — had already seen the earlier show. If we go, Carrie-Anne, it’ll just be you and me. I totally understand if you don’t want to. It’s cool. It’s OK. But if you still want to go, I’d be happy to pick you up at about 9:40.
She said ‘yes.’
We saw Fletch Lives. I know, pretty pathetic. Probably the single worst film Chevy Chase ever made. After the movie we spent 30-minutes together at Hardee’s eating french fries and drinking Dr Pepper. And my heart was captured.
I never made it to any of the other eight names on my list.
From that moment on, Carrie-Anne was my one and only. Forever.
My wife of 21 years is my perfect companion. She knows me better than I know myself. She loves me unconditionally. She believes in me totally. She defends me courageously. She encourages me relentlessly. She would die for our kids and she would kill for her husband. She completes all of my plans, she fulfills all of my hopes and she is the answer to all of my prayers. I thank God for Carrie-Anne, for this wonderful partner who reflects his eternal glory in our house and in my heart.
I’m inspired by the way she gives of herself to her students at Bedford Junior High. I’m moved by her sensitivity and compassion for others. I’m amused by the way she purposely wears her socks inside-out. I’m a little scared when she looks at me over her reading glasses. I’m overwhelmed by the way she loves me.
And she still looks amazing in blue jeans and a sweatshirt.
I outkicked my coverage with Carrie-Anne.
I love you, darling. I’m so thankful that our gracious Lord brought us together. And I still can’t believe you said ‘yes.’
Happy Birthday!
Allan
“All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” ~Romans 6:3-5
Dear Valerie,
It was my great and special honor to baptize you yesterday into the sin-forgiving and salvation-bestowing blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Your baptism, your open heart, and your confessing spirit were an inspiration to all of us who participated in your new birth. It was an especially proud moment for your mom and me.
You have been tremendously blessed by our God. He has favored you, Valerie, with a gentle and generous disposition that considers the needs of others and openly shares kindness and compassion. You are a beautiful and brilliant young lady with an endless amount of potential. The possibilities you possess within you to do good are staggering. You’re so talented, so hilarious, so full of life.
Your mom and I have worked very hard to pass along to you and your sisters our faith in our risen Christ. We have tried to live every day as models of what it looks like to practice what we preach. We’ve tried to be consistent in living out the Gospel in our every interactions within our family and within the world God has given us. Your decision to give yourself wholly to Jesus as the ultimate and eternal Lord of your life is a moment of great satisfaction for us; I won’t lie. It means everything.
“You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” ~Galatians 3:26-29
Be reminded, Valerie, that when you were baptized you put to death that old girl of sin. You buried that girl. You killed her. And when you came up out of the water you were a brand new creature. God has created in you a brand new person, full of his Holy Spirit, to experience everything in a brand new way. You now share in the Resurrection of Jesus. Death has nothing on you now. And neither does sin.
You have renounced the ways of the devil. You have rejected the patterns of this world. You have said ‘no’ to temptation and evil desires that would pull you away from your God. You have now personally and publically embraced salvation from God in Christ. You have put your trust, not in horses and chariots, not in your own talents and abilities, not in your own works and good deeds, but in the Father who promises to save you. Your faith is in him. You have placed yourself in his gracious and loving arms. And he will deliver. Our God is faithful, Valerie. And very, very good.
“Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God… For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” ~Colossians 3:1-4
God has incredibly huge things in store for you, girl. He is going to work in you to transform you more and more into the perfect image of his holy Son. And he’s going to work through you to bless the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people to his eternal glory and praise. And I’m going to be right there in a front row seat, waving your flags and cheering you on the whole way.
You are my daughter in whom I am well pleased.
May you look back often on your baptism, Val, and remember what God has created in you. And may you walk with him always, faithful to the end.
I love you,
Dad
The great biblical scholar and writer N. T. Wright asks, “Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the Resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?”
Yes, the Resurrection of Christ is our greatest event. Yes, Easter is the Church’s greatest day.
Take Christmas away and, in biblical terms, you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke. That’s it. Take Easter away and you don’t have a New Testament. You don’t have Christianity. As Paul says, our preaching is worthless, we are still in our sins, and we are to be pitied beyond all men.
We can’t allow Easter bunnies and eggs and dresses and bonnets (does anybody wear Easter bonnets anymore?) or furniture sales or car lot closeouts to distract us or blow us off course. Easter Sunday is our greatest Sunday. And we should put the flags out.
We should rejoice in our Lord’s Resurrection. We should celebrate his current and forever reign at the right hand of the Father. We should declare the gracious gift of eternal life that comes to all those who share in Christ’s Resurrection. And we should live — man, we should live!! — into the Resurrection, through the Resurrection, because of the Resurrection!
It’s Friday. But Sunday’s comin’!
Grace and Peace,
Allan
God’s Church has always observed a period of fasting and prayer in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection at Easter. Christian writings from the early third century refer to the mandatory, though not uniform, participation in these spiritual disciplines and place the origins of the practice back to “our forefathers.” Eusebius and others refer to Lent in their fourth century writings. The church councils of that age point to Lent as being established by the Apostles.
The practice of Lent itself cannot be found in the Bible, although Holy Scripture does command and assume regular times of fasting and prayer. So, I can honestly affirm Lent as a noble and faithful and Christian thing to do. Absolutely. No doubt. Some of you reading this blog annually observe Lent. You give up a bad habit, put away a certain vice, abstain from a particular pleasure in order to bring your mind and body into a fuller communion with our Lord.
Praise God! That’s fantastic!
But if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter is the time to take things up.
If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off so you can flourish as a Christian and as a God-created human being in his image, then Easter should mean planting and watering and training up new things in your life so you can grow in your sacred relationships with God and man. Yes, you have to weed the garden from time to time. We all do. Sometimes that ground cover or those stumps need some serious digging to be eliminated. That’s Lent. But you don’t want to just turn your garden into a neat little bed of blank dirt. Easter is the time to sow new seeds and plant a few bulbs. Resurrection Day is the time to start something new, something that will blossom and fill your world with color and perfume and righteous fruit.
As we celebrate Easter together this Sunday, why don’t you take up something new? Tackle a new task. Enter into a new venture. Start something, commit to something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may only be able to do it for 40-days, just like you may only be able to give up Dr Pepper and Little Debbies for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new potentials you never dreamed of.
It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.
Peace,
Allan
That’s not a clever title, I know. But that’s really all this post is: a bunch of pictures from our Saturday running of the Warrior Dash up in Roanoke. We had a blast. We enjoyed a great sense of accomplishment. Other than scraped knees and sore legs, nobody got hurt. And we’ve got lots and lots of hilarious stories. I highly recommend Warrior Dash.
(A few months ago, things got weird with my blog. Some of the format changed and a lot of the ways I write and edit and insert pictures and articles changed. I haven’t been happy with it. I’m not at all comfortable with it. But I have no idea how to change any of it. This post looks horrible. And I don’t know how to fix it. I didn’t use to have any of these problems. Please bear with me. After today, I’m determined to get this fixed.)
This is the Legacy group that ran together in the 10:00 am wave Saturday morning. There were others of us that ran at 1:30 that afternoon and 6:00 that evening. But this was our little band of warriors. Ready for the challenge!
After wading through waist-deep water, climbing cargo net walls, leaping cars and trucks, scaling stacks of hay bales, and jumping over fire, we made it to the final obstacle: a giant pit of slimy mud. We had to get low in order to clear the barbed wire that ran over the mud. Naturally, this is where the crowds of spectators were gathered and where most of the best pictures were taken.
The most deflating, demoralizing part of the day was crossing the finish line, getting my medal of spectacular achievement, and seeing Hudson up on the banks, already showered and clean and dry and not a hair out of place. What a punk! Next year, Hudson. I’m keeping up with you next year.
I think the Warrior Dash is primarily targeted to a college-aged demographic that drinks more than just Diet Dr Pepper. But we had an absolute blast together. Carl Ball took some great pictures and some video and put together a funny little film we watched together at a BBQ place Saturday night. In just a five-hour time span the stories had been embellished and the details of the day exaggerated so that they were barely recognizable. Carrie-Anne’s going to run it with us next year. Carley’s chomping at the bit to turn 14 so she can enter. And I think our Legacy numbers may double or triple. Thanks to Greg Hardman for turning us on to Warrior Dash. Greg, if you find one in the fall, we’re in!
Peace,
Allan
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